A Tale of Two Terminals

In this talk, Mary Poppendieck compare the openings of Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3 and Heathrow Terminal 5 and present the lessons they hold for anyone switching on complex systems that absolutely must be on time, and must work well—starting the very first day.

In this talk, Mary Poppendieck will compare and contrast the openings of Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3 and Heathrow Terminal 5 and present the lessons they hold for anyone switching on complex systems that absolutely must be on time, and must work well—starting the very first day.

On March 26, 2008, Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3 commenced full scale operations. Covering almost a million square meters, the massive building took four years and less than $4 billion US dollars to build.

But you don’t hear much about the opening of this terminal, because it was pleasantly uneventful, while the chaotic opening of Heathrow Terminal 5 a day later captured worldwide attention. About a third of the size and twice the cost of Beijing Terminal 3, Heathrow Terminal 5 took twice as long to build; yet despite months of testing, its opening was an embarrassment to all concerned

A Tale of Two Terminals

Mary considered retirement 1998, but instead found herself managing a government software project where she first encountered the word “waterfall.” When Mary compared her experience in successful software and product development to the prevailing opi

Tom Poppendieck is an enterprise analyst and architect, and an agile process mentor. He focuses on identifying real business value and enabling product teams to realize that value. Tom specializes in understanding customer processes and in effectiv

In this talk, Mary Poppendieck compare the openings of Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3 and Heathrow Terminal 5 and present the lessons they hold for anyone switching on complex systems that absolutely must be on time, and must work well—starting the very first day.

In this talk, Mary Poppendieck will compare and contrast the openings of Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3 and Heathrow Terminal 5 and present the lessons they hold for anyone switching on complex systems that absolutely must be on time, and must work well—starting the very first day.

On March 26, 2008, Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3 commenced full scale operations. Covering almost a million square meters, the massive building took four years and less than $4 billion US dollars to build.

But you don’t hear much about the opening of this terminal, because it was pleasantly uneventful, while the chaotic opening of Heathrow Terminal 5 a day later captured worldwide attention. About a third of the size and twice the cost of Beijing Terminal 3, Heathrow Terminal 5 took twice as long to build; yet despite months of testing, its opening was an embarrassment to all concerned

A Tale of Two Terminals

Mary considered retirement 1998, but instead found herself managing a government software project where she first encountered the word “waterfall.” When Mary compared her experience in successful software and product development to the prevailing opi

Tom Poppendieck is an enterprise analyst and architect, and an agile process mentor. He focuses on identifying real business value and enabling product teams to realize that value. Tom specializes in understanding customer processes and in effectiv